To deli owner, mingling cultures mean stronger neighborhood

By Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle
Leo Beckerman smiles slightly as he repeats the question he’s heard repeatedly since he opened Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen on the corner of 24th and Shotwell: “Why would you open a Jewish deli in the Mission District?”
It’s a question loaded with assumptions about class and race and ethnicity and belonging. Beckerman leans forward across one of the wooden tables in his deli and responds with a question: “How can you start a neighborhood restaurant not in your neighborhood?”
He has lived nearby for about five years and feels this is his neighborhood as much as anybody’s. He speaks Spanish learned while living in Central America in his 20s.
But Beckerman feels he belongs for what he does, not for who he is.
“For me, it’s sharing my comfort food,” he said. “You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Jewish deli.”
One morning before Wise Sons opened, mariachi music played on a portable radio as some of his 17 employees bustled through the 30-seat space, hauling boxes or cleaning rags.
“I want to eat a burrito and Chinese food and sushi and pho and ramen. And that makes me feel good and it’s comforting — but that is not my culture,” Beckerman said. “So that kind of cross-cultural experience is positive. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what you grew up with or your language, comfort food is comfort food.”
Framed black-and-white photos of families — Beckerman’s grandma, the children and parents of investors and friends — cover the walls. Nearly all are white.
When Wise Sons opened, it represented “a really noticeable shift,” said Gabriela Sierra Alonso, the former editor in chief of El Tecolote, the Mission’s bilingual activist newspaper, which has covered the neighborhood since 1970. “All across San Francisco, people are trying to jump the gun and develop, develop, develop before other people get to it.”
Beckerman heard the grumbling from long-timers on 24th Street when he and his friend Evan Bloom opened in the space that used to be El Tonayense, a restaurant run by a family that used food trucks before they were cool.
At the suggestion of neighborhood activists, they kept a mural from their predecessor.
A few doors down, Luis Gutierrez’s family has run La Reyna Bakery since 1977. Gutierrez wonders aloud how can anyone “fit in by making sandwiches that are $13 or $15? That’s half your cable bill. That’s your telephone bill. That’s your light bill.”
Beckerman knows that “our price points are higher than a lot of other places.”
“When we first opened, people were particularly surprised — a pastrami sandwich is just under $13. But I can walk you through the quality of every ingredient in that. It’s something we’re really proud of. But I understand.”
He and Bloom said they’ve included other items on the menu to try to “balance things out.” A breakfast sandwich with hash potatoes for $8. Unlimited coffee. They increased the portion sizes. But there’s only so much they can do with a menu that is inspired by family and cultural traditions.
“You can get a biali and cream cheese for $3.50,” Beckerman offered.
He has watched the neighborhood change during his two years at 24th and Shotwell.
Anxiety about that change, he said, is “partly the unknown. And part of it is, ‘We’ve been here 30 years doing it this way, why change?’
“I see this as opportunity,” he said. “If you sell cookies … doesn’t everyone like cookies? It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what language you speak. A cookie is a cookie. We like cookies. So celebrate that. When I go to Dominguez bakery down the street, I feel like I’m 5 years old all of a sudden, looking at all the cookies I want, and that feels good.”
That’s a sensation he wants to impart to his own customers. Beckerman considers the restaurant his home. A place he wants to share with neighbors. But don't $13 sandwiches only attract a certain kind of neighbor?
“Are we different than the place was here before? Yes. Are we attracting different people? Yes. But we’re also attracting more people," Beckerman said. "I don’t see how having more people coming to the neighborhood, if it’s for an hour or more, is a negative thing. I often tell people where to go afterwards. Go check out the murals. Go get some guacamole at La Palma.
“Our claim here is not that we own the neighborhood,” he said. “It’s that we are a part of the neighborhood.”